The Mist

From behind him, the dim light of the early morning dawn, illuminates his tall, lean, body in the doorway. His shadow cast itself across the bedroom and onto our bed as if to gently touch me, to comfort me. It’s still quite dark, and it's only because I know his stature that I’m confident it is he. There he stands like so many times before, quietly watching me sleep. Being careful not to wake me as he slips off to work. He thinks I’m sleeping, but I watch him through barely opened eyes. I want to see how long he will stand there, watching me. Would he walk over and kiss my cheek, or turn and walk away?

He'd always kiss me gently before he would go off on another mission.

"Never know if it will be our last kiss," he’d say, only half joking.

His job is a dangerous one, always off to places he could not reveal, with a job to do that he could not speak of. I’ve become use to it over the past ten years. Mission after mission I watched him go. Mission after mission I prayed for his safe return. And mission after mission I welcomed him home again. But this time was different. This time, his chances of making it home are slim to none. Never before have I felt this terrifying fear.

“Please, don’t go.” I begged him that night, but my plea made him angry with me for being weak. His squad needed him, he said.

“I can’t let my men down. If they have to go, I’m going to be there with them.”

He’s a stubborn man, this I know full well, and eventually he won, and I came to bed without speaking to him. Now I lay here, peeking at him through the slits of my eyes, wondering what he’s thinking. He looks so peaceful standing there, his silhouette, in the mist of the morning.

Suddenly, the angry words we exchanged became minuscule. I reach out to him and open my eyes. But once again, his silhouette fades away, into the mist of the early morning dawn.